Wednesday 29 April 2020

There was a young Pied Wagtail on the jetty at the Lido.


Later, when I was walking along the other side of the lake, I found two of them being fed insects at the boat platform.


A Song Thrush poked around in a patch of mud collecting small twigs to add to its nest.


Ko told me that the Mistle Thrush nest on the north edge of Kensington Gardens, which we thought had been predated and abandoned, was active again. I went there and found the two adults rattling angrily from a neighbouring tree ...


... but there was an adult Blackbird standing on the nest. I don't know what's going on here.


Another Blackbird was busy with a worm on the path, and ignored the people going by. Like many birds they aren't worried when you don't seem to be paying attention to them. And if you have a large camera in front of your face they don't see you looking at them.


Long-Tailed Tits are more or less indifferent to humans. This was one of a pair in a tree beside the Long Water.


I haven't seen any activity around the Long-Tailed Tits' nest in the Rose Garden for two days. The nest is looking a bit saggy and out of shape, but it hasn't been torn open as it would be if it had been attacked by a predator.

Update: Sad news. This evening the nest was found wrecked, apparently by a rat.

The three Reed Warblers near the Diana fountain were singing loudly at each other.


The pair of Lesser Black-Backed Gulls on the Long Water called to each other over the head of a third gull which they clearly considered an intruder. It flew away.


The lone Egyptian gosling on the Serpentine was by itself, looking anxiously at its parents which were some distance away on the other side of the road.


The father looked back at it, but the mother was unconcernedly grazing in the background. They are very vague parents.


The trouble with giving birdseed to the seven Egyptian goslings on the other side of the lake is that a mob of Feral Pigeons arrives in seconds and crowds them out. You can see that the goslings are quite used to this.


Two Greylag Geese were on a pedalo, looking as if they might be thinking of nesting there.


A Coot had already had that idea.


Another Coot has made at nest at the Serpentine outflow. Because the fountains in the Italian Garden have been turned off as part of the official misery scheme, no water is flowing out of the Serpentine and its level has dropped a couple of inches. But when (if ever) the fountains are turned on again, it will be at the top of a weir.


There is one egg in the nest.


A Tufted drake trotted busily along the path, ignoring the runners lumbering by inches away.

4 comments:

  1. Sad news. Visited the long tailed tit's nest around 6pm this evening and it has been attacked and ripped apart. It looked like a rat was going over the remains of the nest but apart from that there was no sign of life.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh God, what horrible, horrible news. Could this awful 2020 end already?

    At least the Wagtail chick is looking healthy, and the gosling has made it another day.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I was always worried about that exposed nest, but had forgotten that it might be attacked from below.

      Delete